Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

We have been living quietly in the past few weeks, as Katherine resigns herself to a life with just parents, rather than the wonderful world of grandparents living just across the hall.  Nathaniel has started another round of intense eating and waking at night, so life is currently best lived simply for the parents who may well be short a few brain cells for awhile.  Today I submitted the first of my five chapters to my advisors for the dissertation defense in September.  The next four chapters will all go out in the next two weeks, so I’m revising, revising, revising.  And I’m laughing at the lengthy, careful, detailed lists of “To do”s for each chapter, knowing that I’ll only be able to address a fraction of the things I’d like to see added or changed.  Sydney is, quietly, helping wherever possible, taking Nathaniel when he has difficulty going to sleep, making dinners, proofreading, and giving me regular time to work in the mornings.

In the past week we’ve had two great visits from friends from home.  I haven’t seen Jen since the day of my wedding, so I was delighted to learn that she would be in town, interested in meeting up, and bringing her partner for me to meet.  I did my best not to shriek, “The little sister is all grown up!!  And now a world traveler and owner of advanced degrees!  My goodness!”  I only just managed.  Both Jen and Jess were great company, reading stories to Katherine, teasing Nathaniel, and making me laugh.  Katherine got a bit wound up with all of the attention, but otherwise we had a great time.  This evening Aaron came to visit and, as requested, brought pictures of his wife and son, whom we haven’t seen since we left Ithaca.  Katherine was intrigued by the pictures of the little boy, who was born two months after she was, and plied our guest with her wooden vegetables until his hands were full.  In our sleep-deprived state it is wonderful to see friends who already know us, who sit easily with our children, and who give us an excuse to settle in for good food and good conversation.

Erin

One of whom just left her grandchildren to return home (and is missing them terribly) and one of whom is counting down the days until they arrive (and is missing them terribly).

Erin

My complaints about Nathaniel’s sleeping habits apparently roused the researcher in Sydney to action.  He just informed that, no, everybody else’s child is not sleeping through the night at this age.  Apparently only 16% of six-month-old babies sleep through the night.  The same percentage have no sleeping schedule whatsoever.  Sydney conceded that most of these children wake only once or twice in a night (rather than, as Nathaniel does, a minimum of three times), but breastfed children wake more often than those who are bottle-fed.  I don’t know whether to be glad that we have a normal child or sad that there are so many other sleepless parents out there.

I’m actually quite glad that I had delusions of having a “good sleeper” on my hands in the first few months.  If I’d known that I would be defending my dissertation without a good night in recent memory I might not have had the guts to schedule it!

Erin

Katherine has suddenly come out with a few three-syllable words recently, and it’s clear that she’s enjoying them.  She’s been tripping around the house, saying “ah-di-dot” (apricot) and “un-der-neath” as often as possible.  Everything is now “underneath”; it reminds me of my students’ tendencies to sprinkle “educated” terms in every sentence, a spell that lasts for an amusing three weeks after they first learn the words.

Nathaniel, however, is regressing a bit, charming as he is.  Not only is he not sleeping through the night, he’s not interested in sleeping for more than an hour at a time for a big chunk of the night.  I’m feeling a bit on my last leg here (I also feel like I should make some terrible joke about legs falling asleep, but I won’t), but I know that I am, by now, on my fifth or sixth leg, so I’m going to just hang in there and hope it passes.  A bit too zonked to really work with him at night (not that I’m much of a night owl even in the best of times), but hoping that he eases up.  I’m in the final stretch of the dissertation, starting the rewrites that will consume me for the next month before I send the whole mess off to my advisors, and it would be great to have some sleep for this stage!

Erin

We arrived in Wengen, Switzerland, after sunset; this is the view that greeted us when we woke up in the morning:

The following morning was cloudier; who would have known there were snow-covered mountains here?

At the train station, waiting to head out for some hiking:

The Trümmelbach Falls are an amazing set of ten, glacier-fed waterfalls that have carved themselves deeply into the mountain side.

On the way back to Wengen after our hiking, we enjoyed a lovely rainbow in the valley below:

Our kids share my nationality (American) but not Sydney’s (Canadian).  Canada has recently tightened its rules for conferring citizenship on children of its citizens.  Since Sydney was born in Belize, Canada is reluctant to confer citizenship on his children, even though he spent most of his youth in Canada.  If we wanted to get Canadian citizenship for the kids we’d have a fight on our hands unless we decide to relocate there permanently.  If the kids had been born there, they would likely be eligible for both US and Canadian citizenship.  Britain, interestingly enough, does not confer citizenship on individuals simply because they were born in the UK; Nathaniel would only be eligible for UK citizenship if we spent the first ten years of his life here (which is definitely not part of our plan).  The US, however, conferred citizenship to Nathaniel with minimal effort from me: I simply had to be an American citizen who spent five years (two after the age of 14) in my home country.  Done!

Erin

Katherine had a chance to expand her vocabulary over the last two weeks.  After a couple of days she readily started calling Dora and Henry, collectively, “Gran-grand.”  She also got a chance to try out “bus,” “train,” “choo-choo,” and “airplane.”  She’s quite up on her modes of transportation.

On Thursday, after we’d taken an Oxford bus, a London subway, train, and airplane, a Swiss bus, and four Swiss trains, we were standing on the train platform, waiting for the final one to haul us up to our hotel, and Katherine, looking around at the new scenery, said “Mountain!”  We heard that one a lot over the next few days.

Erin

Sydney’s parents arrived a week ago Monday, a little later and more tired than we’d expected, due to some flight delays in Nova Scotia.  We rested up the remainder of Monday and early Tuesday, then took a trip out to Blenheim Palace on Tuesday to see large, old trees (not the palace) and enjoy some walking after all of that travel.  Wednesday we had another day at home, getting things together for our trip to Switzerland, Thursday through Saturday.  We were pretty tired when we came home from that trip, but decided to run out to London yesterday to pay a visit to Kew Gardens.

Not surprisingly, we found ourselves juggling rest, children, and the desire to see fun things.  We probably saw too many things to get much in the way of rest and children on their best behavior, and I’m afraid that our experiences are still largely colored by crying sessions and temper tantrums, but I’m hoping that that is not all that we’ll remember from our adventures.

For those of you curious about, specifically, our travel with children, we’ve learned that it’s best if we do everything possible to help Katherine get sleep and take that into account as a serious travel consideration.  She’s not a fantastic sleeper anyway, and she really needs those afternoon naps and long nights in her crib (and even those hours of talking to herself before going down).  We can get away with a day without a nap every now and then, but she only had a couple of naps in the past two weeks, and we could really tell (as could everyone else who shared a plane, train, or subway car with us).  We’re not sure exactly what that means for our future travel ambitions, but it’s probably something about which we should have better warned the grandparents!

Erin

Although our week was filled with adventures, and most of our pictures are of mountains, trees, and flowers, we did find time (thanks to reminders from Dora!) to take a family picture.

At the moment I’m laughing pretty hard at the vision of family unity, since I know that I was struggling to look out through a cold-induced migraine, Katherine had only had two naps in the previous week and was acting out accordingly, and Nathaniel had done his best to keep us up every few hours at night.  But hey, in a year or so I may actually think things were as peaceable as they look!

Erin

Sydney’s parents headed home this morning, leaving us with lots of pictures to share.  Both grandparents did a lot of humoring, holding, carrying, and playing during their stay.  I think Katherine, in particular, is going to miss her audience.

Erin